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Publishers’ Forum 2012

Presentations 2012

Abstracts – April 23, 2012

The International Experience I | English

The way we think about publishing is unduly governed by the nature of the container – the physical book. Although demand for digital content has grown substantially, publishers continue to treat digital formats as a derived or secondary use. As a result, context is truncated or excluded, reducing the degree to which content can be discovered and consumed. At the same time, content abundance places pressure on publishers to find new and more effective ways to market content products. To address these several challenges, publishers need to revise their content workflows to ensure that they can develop and maintain context throughout the publishing process.

Disruptive Change
Michael Healy, Copyright Clearance Center, USA

Digital technology continues to transform the ways in which content is published, distributed, and used, and it’s affecting everyone in the value chain. New types of content development companies are emerging that want to license content for re-use in new types of products such as apps and enhanced e-books. Traditional publishers want to re-purpose content in new ways and to exploit the revenue potential of blogs and other kinds of digital publications. Consumers, both in academic and corporate settings, expect to be able to use the content they acquire for different purposes, for example for data and text mining or for use in digital course packs. Changing expectations and new patterns of content usage are putting pressure on existing rights and licensing models. New licensing tools are emerging, many of them based on new alliances and a new understanding of the importance of international cooperation in a global content market. In this presentation, Michael Healy of Copyright Clearance Center will review the key developments in a fast-changing marketplace and identify trends that are starting to transform how content is being licensed.

New publishing models and discovery tools are impacting how authors can publish, promote and sell their work. More distribution options, social media tools and support services exist and new ones are emerging all the time. These dynamics can greatly impact publishers, agents and authors as they re-tool to remain in step with changing times. This presentation highlights some trends that have surfaced over the past several years and explains metadata taxonomies that can improve discoverability.

Approaches and Perspectives | Lectures | German

Rowohlt Digitalbuch Plus – experiences with a new book format and perspectives for the future
Dr. Uwe Naumann, Rowohlt, GER

A successful enriched e-book requires the interaction of technical possibilities with the presentation of the content. Only when the chain of publishing requirements, author’s wishes, marketing strategy, production, content concepts, rights clearance, programming implementation, distribution channels, and the hopes and expectations of readers is closed, can success occur. Uwe Naumann reports on the experiences of the Rowohlt publishing house with its Digitalbuch Plus program and develops perspectives for future projects.

Christine Hauck presents a solution for digital schoolbooks developed by the Verband Bildungsmedien (educational media association). Participating publishers are provided with e-book reader software for the dissemination and use of digital school books. The digital books can be enhanced with multimedia content and can be run on any operating system or device that is relevant for schools. Access is granted via ‘activation codes’ which are purchased directly from the participating publishers. The form of the licensing and business models is in the hands of the publishers alone. This open solution is intended to create an industry standard independent of suppliers and manufacturers. 27 publishing houses are already taking part.

Skoobe GmbH is a Munich-based joint venture between the publishing groups Random House and Georg von Holtzbrinck, and arvato. After its founding in summer 2010 and the subsequent development phase, the Skoobe app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch was released via Apple’s app store on 31 May 2011. The name Skoobe is simply e-books written backwards.
With the help of its beta-users, Skoobe continued to develop the app – in particular to cater for the specific requirements of readers of e-books and to ensure ease of use. The mobile library was first presented to the public on 29 February 2012. Skoobe is open to any publisher who wishes to offer their books on this platform. Christian Damke will report on his experiences in the development of the mobile library and the first results of the launch.

Approaches and Perspectives | Lectures | English

Social Media ImpactProf. Tim Bruysten, richtwert, GERWhat is behind terms like “co-creation”, “crowdsourcing” or “liquid democracy” for publishers and agencies? How can these companies develop strategically sensible business models on the basis of a market that is divided into an endless number of highly-dynamic networks? The presentation illuminates the actual situation and elaborates on concepts related to the change from “consumer goods” to “social products”. The presentation “From identity management to social product” also shows that the development of product or communications campaigns is not sufficient and which challenges are imminent for those in the industry.

The creation and marketing of innovative products has become a survival factor for publishers. But many publishers are not positioned for this kind of innovation management: a market and customer-oriented approach, the development of new business models, reacting quickly to new technologies and new competitors, working in non-hierarchical project teams – all this requires an extensive process of change. In this workshop, the goals and methods of such a process will be discussed with reference to case studies.

Metadata has become more crucial than ever in the digital age. Only metadata makes your digital products stand out in the noise of thousands of digital portals, eBook-platforms, digital resellers and aggregators. We believe that metadata management in the back office and high quality metadata integration between systems is one of the most important tools to market and license products and generate sales in an increasingly complex electronic marketplace.
In this situation, we can identify the two key success factors as follows:
1. Data Quality. No publisher can afford any longer metadata that is spread over systems, that different departments edit the same data in different systems, and that the responsibility for quality and related workflows is unclear or ambiguous.
2. Electronic, automated Data Integration. With your content being more and more distributed on the Web, the electronic transfer of metadata becomes essential. Digital distributors simply rely on your electronically transferred metadata. Delays, incomplete or incorrect data, manual intervention, legacy exchange formats, and proprietary exchange protocols will become a growing issue, cost money and increase time-to-market.
How to electronically link between Title Management software and a Web front end system becomes particularly important if a Publisher’s entire product portfolio goes to the web.
In this case study, we will explain the powerful and fully automated integration between product metadata in the Klopotek Title Management System and de Gruyter’s new web portal deGruyter.com. In more detail, we will cover
• how we set up the metadata for more than 20 new and innovative electronic, print, and bundled product types in the back office
• how we automated the metadata flow and mapping between the Title Management software and the new Web portal
• how the Web portal then visualizes the extensive product metadata
Please note, we will focus on the e-commerce integration in our other presentation “Integrating deGruyter.com e-commerce with the back office software”.

Approaches and Perspectives | Workshops | German

Fiction and Semantics – approaches and options for research with end consumers
Sven-Folker Busch, picturesafe, GERPublishers have – particularly in the area of fiction – large amounts of material that is still barely tapped or is not prepared to be distributed in a granular form. Above all, this material is not prepared so that the target group (end consumer = reader ) can research it intuitively.
The workshop presents the spectrum of use for the available semantic tools and opens up the results of case studies in dedicated operating environments to discussion. With the data acquired, scenarios such as the use of a virtual salesperson for online shops become conceivable. The automatic construction of “tag clouds” (free keywords and relevant phrases), the automatic digitization and indexing of manuscripts for sale on e-publishing platforms (automatic summaries, classification) and an idea for a tool to simplify the preparation of marketing texts are among the tools presented in the workshop.

XML first teaches us to understand content better
Ulrike Borinski, Institut für Verbundstudien NRW, GER
The self-study components of the combined study / vocational training program offered by the universities of applied sciences in North Rhine-Westphalia are supported with self-study materials, so-called study units. Approximately 3,000 study units are regularly revised and produced. The requirements of the process and the medium are expanding on the teaching side, so that it seems appropriate to base the production of the study units on XML.
What happens to a study unit when one structures it semantically with the XML tools and so begins to understand it as XML content?
A report on discoveries, transformations, and surprises.

With the skyrocketing sales of tablet PCs, e-readers and smartphones, more and more readers and consumers are looking for the digital versions of publishers’ products. As a result of this development, publishers and their service providers are facing major challenges – from organization to new concepts, workflows and procurement strategies. The most important factor in successfully adapting to such major changes in a company’s organizational culture is getting the employees on board – the most important resource of a company. Markus Wilhelm illustrates the critical factors in this process in his workshop. He provides an overview of the various fundamental personality types and their typical patterns of behavior in the face of changes in publishing houses and service providers. With the help of case studies, Markus Wilhelm illuminates the tools which are necessary to successfully manage change.

A successful enriched e-book requires the interaction of technical possibilities with the presentation of the content. Only when the chain of publishing requirements, author’s wishes, marketing strategy, production, content concepts, rights clearance, programming implementation, distribution channels, and the hopes and expectations of readers is closed, can success occur. Uwe Naumann reports on the experiences of the Rowohlt publishing house with its Digitalbuch Plus program and develops perspectives for future projects. (detailed discussion)

Approaches and Perspectives | Workshops | English

The publishing industry has already changed dramatically, but this is only the start of an accelerated, possibly exponential, rate of change. A continuously increasing range of new demands and business opportunities that are unknown today will arise in the short-, mid-, and long-term future. This goes together with a demand for increasingly individualized and customizable ‘mashed-up’ content.
This poses challenges to the traditional ‘single product’ means of creating books, whether these books are print or digital. Traditional hand-crafted processes are no longer sustainable; automated processes have become an essential requirement for publishers. Merely incorporating XML into our workflows, however, won’t solve the problem. Everything publishers do from hereon will depend on the effectiveness of their content strategy. We need to rethink the way we create, manage, publish, and deliver content, and for what purpose. Content needs to be understood as a resource in its own right, freed from output-based workflows, and user experience (UX) and context need to be at the heart of what we do.
In the past, the output format for books was print only, regardless of the genre or type. Print allows for one specific UX: reading on paper, while turning pages. Now we have digital output, which offers many more possibilities. Different types of content can now be connected with a wide variety of UX, for example: narrative fiction can be read in chapters while ‘turning’ digital pages of eBook readers; travel guides connect their route description to GPS devices, and dictionaries are incorporated in electronic reading devices, providing word definitions within texts at whatever cursor position they are needed.
Arguably, to enable our content to be useful to readers and profitable for ourselves, we need to create modular or component structured content that can be repurposed for all and every format and device. Device-independent, but context dependent, content conception, content creation and content delivery processes must be adopted.
In this workshop we will elaborate on why a content strategy for publishing is crucial today and what steps we need to take to get there.

New publishing models and discovery tools are impacting how authors can publish, promote and sell their work. More distribution options, social media tools and support services exist and new ones are emerging all the time. These dynamics can greatly impact publishers, agents and authors as they re-tool to remain in step with changing times. This presentation highlights some trends that have surfaced over the past several years and explains metadata taxonomies that can improve discoverability.

Innovative Publishing Prozesses | Lectures | German

Enterprise 2.0 – redefining knowledge organization or old wine in new wineskins?Prof. Dr. Frank Schönefeld, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions, GERWho can still remember the good old days of classic knowledge management? With its centrally-managed knowledge and skill databases? Abstract and unrelated to the projects and tasks? With which it was hopeless to identify the experts in a company? Probably, only a small few. Because the concept of classic knowledge management belongs to the past thanks to the changes in modern companies caused by the Web 2.0. Today, ideally, the results emerging from processes shape a company’s knowledge base automatically. This presentation is dedicated to the question of how a company can achieve better quality knowledge management on the basis of the Enterprise 2.0 concept which penetrates every level and every department in equal measure.

On the one hand, customer data is more and more regularly being turned into products or product components (personalized products, profile services, supplier directories, etc.), on the other hand, they are becoming more and more important in sales and advertising in the form of accumulated profiles.
Objectively, many publishers (particularly those that depend on advertising) rarely have more than one anonymous delivery address for their customers and even if personalized data is available, it – exceptions aside – seldom really creates value.
Keywords such as upselling and cross-selling, web shop optimization and customer classification will be discussed with reference to case studies.
The thesis: You can be better than Amazon.

Innovative Publishing Prozesses | Lectures | English

This presentation will look at a new approach being used by leading media organizations such as the BBC and the Press Association to give them the flexibility they need to meet their customers’ demands. Dynamic Semantic Publishing is a term that has been coined to describe a publishing system that combines semantic metadata, ontologies and analytics, to allow faster launch of new products, enable the joining of content and data from multiple domains, and reduce the costs of doing this by a significant degree.

The concept of jazz — structure, separation, integration and improvisation — provides a way to think about the relationship between different elements in the organisation, the content itself, technology and creativity in the digital age.
The best jazz musicians have a deep knowledge of scales, and many of the best have had classical training. Embedded and tacit understanding of this structure allows them to be creative, to innovate, and to ‘integrate’ with other musicians to create new art forms through improvisation.
In a similar way, agile workflows can serve and inspire creativity and innovation in publishing.
Today, publishing needs to be both a science and an art. With the former, publishing companies will be able to compete in the world; organisations and content need to be agile in a fast-changing world. And with art and creativity, publishers will be able to differentiate themselves from each other and the content farms.
Let’s improvise!

Executive Lounge | English

The way we think about publishing is unduly governed by the nature of the container – the physical book. Although demand for digital content has grown substantially, publishers continue to treat digital formats as a derived or secondary use. As a result, context is truncated or excluded, reducing the degree to which content can be discovered and consumed. At the same time, content abundance places pressure on publishers to find new and more effective ways to market content products. To address these several challenges, publishers need to revise their content workflows to ensure that they can develop and maintain context throughout the publishing process.

Abstracts – April 24, 2012

The International Experience II | English

Electronic publishing is going through a revolution right now. The end-consumer of information is expanding from human to machine. What problems does this present and how can smart technology assist?
The Governance, Risk and Compliance business at Thomson Reuters is the fastest growing unit in the corporation. Its core vision is to dynamically connect business transactions, strategy and operations to the ever-changing regulatory environment. In a financial service market still reeling from the crisis of the past few years, where budgets are still squeezed and the rate of regulatory change never higher, it requires sophisticated and groundbreaking approaches to content production to be able to deliver what is required to these institutions in a cost-effective and highly-efficient manner.
Acquired in 2007, Clearforest – now rebranded Open Calais – is a highly complex toolkit that is helping GRC achieve its aforementioned mission.
Andrew Jordan, Chief Technology and Operations Officer for the GRC business, will talk through its use of Open Calais, and how this is helping financial services companies to cope with the huge volume of regulatory change. He will also explore the Thomson Reuters Content Marketplace, the division that owns and operates Calais, and how the GRC and Content Marketplace worlds are taking raw content assets from within Thomson Reuters and developing them into highly sophisticated and targeted knowledge solutions.

Over the past five years semantics have emerged as a critical capability for the online distribution of content, and a strategic growth platform for Publishers. Acting as a backbone for innovative content packaging, the technology powers advanced information access features on online information portals, with direct benefits in terms of audience engagement, as well as productivity gains. This session will investigate these key publishing applications for semantics, and underscore underlying trends shaping how we will manage, distribute, and access information in the future.

Book markets have traditionally been national, with booksellers and publishers focusing their efforts on meeting the needs of readers in a particular country or, at most, language. Now, for the first time, e-books have created a truly international book marketplace, bringing with it new challenges. Kobo, delivering e-books into over 100 countries every day, is uniquely positioned to describe emerging trends in this changing landscape and how publishers around the world are adapting to them.

Innovative Publishing Processes | Presentations | German

Since the eighties, the number of music outlets has shrunk by 90 per cent as a result of digitization. And this development won’t just pass the book trade by. The future of the book trade lies in the internet. What has happened there until now is only a small fraction of what is technically possible and what other industries are already demonstrating. Online booksellers could do more than their traditional counterparts, particularly when it comes to making personalized selections from an extensive (too extensive) range of products. However, developments in the book trade industry still lag behind what has been working for years in the film and music industries. What are recommendation systems capable of? Where do the problems and opportunities lie for the book trade industry?

How are booksellers informed about new releases and backlist books and what do they pass on to their customers? Changes in B2B communication between publishers and booksellers have been negligible in the past 50 years – print previews, mailings and visits from sales reps are still the methods of choice. Aside from cosmetic changes, also wholesalers have little new to offer. The product group system is updated every 10 years, keywords come from the depths of the catalog creation department, integration with the rest of the world, integration of print and online media, for example, has not taken place.
Information on books travels a well-worn path from bookseller to customer. The selection and in-store presentation of books still works well, but should a customer dare to want extra advice or information after closing time, recommendations on their smart phone or an extract to read at home…
This presentation is going to provide a little tour of media discontinuities, incompatibilities, data cemeteries, communication dead-ends and construction sites – and a few impressions of tomorrow’s book information, data sources and recommendation forms.

(LOD2-I) Networked Knowledge as an Ecosystem: the Semantic Data Web
Dr. Sören Auer, Universität Leipzig, GER
In recent years, the ‘semantic data web’ has emerged and it continues to develop.
Developing an ecosystem of networked knowledge which is accessible to everyone out of this web means, along with improvements to the quality and coherence of information, creating direct added value for the end-user. Publishers and media, with their continually increasing stores of knowledge, can make an important contribution to this, because high-value, editorial content can be linked to background knowledge from the data web and thus be enhanced in a meaningful way.
The presentation deals with the current developments in the context of ‘linked open data’ and demonstrates potentials and visions for applications in the media and publishing environment.

Jurion stands for the latest generation of integrated specialist information products. Jurion brings content, data and domain knowledge to the customer’s processes and embeds them in a network of colleagues, authors and partners – embracing all of this and still focussed on increasing efficiency.
The implementation of this vision involves major challenges to the contextualization and semantic preparation of the content and the legal domain. The presentation will single out and elaborate on important elements of this contextualization. There will be further, more detailed explanations in the subsequent workshop.

Innovative Publishing Processes | Presentations | English

Identical and of the highest quality, no matter which degree of longitude your book is printed at. Uniform production costs, no warehousing and fast, simultaneous delivery to every continent guaranteed: fast, global and inexpensive.
Worldwide production means: one content – one channel – one partner – one order – one invoice – unique data based on your optimized workflow.Semantic XML and Content Management
Heide Ebert, SCHEMA, GER

The presentation is about Semantic XML and Content Management with a focus on the needs of publishing houses. It considers the functions of highly specialized semantic XML and shows that content management systems can help to simplify the complexity of the XML structures and to make life easier for authors. The presentation will show the best practice developed in a project at a publishing house that focuses on legal information.

TenForce will reveal some of the threats and opportunities of the dataweb through specific examples. Attendees will learn what this new paradigm means for different stakeholders: existing publishers, government, service developers … The talk will also zoom in on the components and mechanism of a typical dataweb or linked open data solution. Attendees will understand the basis architecture for dataweb or linked open data solutions. It will become clear that metadata, availability of metadata on the web and linking of metadata are cornerstones of any solution. TenForce will present some case studies from real live projects. Through these case studies you will learn the typical approach and methodology to deploy data web and linked open data solutions. You will learn how to mitigate risks and guarantee success.

Metadata integration and workflow integration between systems has become more crucial than ever in the digital age. We believe that both have become essential for marketing and selling in an increasingly complex electronic marketplace.
When it comes to e-commerce, we can identify the electronic, automated data integration between a web portal and a back office Order to Cash software as a key success factor, particularly important if a Publisher’s entire product portfolio goes to the web.
In this case study, we will explain the powerful and fully automated integration between the web shop functionality in de Gruyter’s new web portal deGruyter.com and Klopotek’s Order to Cash software in the back office. In more detail, we will address
• how products are synchronized
• how the real-time integration between the deGruyter.com web shop and the Order to Cash software works, and
• how we achieve a 100% one-to-one between the web shop and the Order to Cash software with regards to products, customers, discounts, orders, prices, shipping charges, and taxation
• how the access to content is managed between the Order to Cash software and deGruyter.com in real-time
• how we achieve a 100% one-to-one between access authorization on the portal and orders in the Order to Cash software
Please note, we will focus on the Title Management metadata integration in our other presentation “Integrating the deGruyter.com catalog with the back office software”.

Innovative Publishing Processes | Workshops | German

The workshop is going to present perspectives on and concepts for ways in which publishers can systematically expand their enterprise and establish profitable structures in digital business. Examples of analogies to other industries will be discussed to answer the question: What potential can be unlocked in the management of digital content products?
Integrated processes, component orientation, diversification and quality are guarantees of success in classical industry. Their equivalent in publishing is semantically supported production and the distribution of modular content fragments. A carefully planned semantic information architecture which constantly adjusts to reader interests enables effective management of every market research, conception and content production process. One platform for a variety of products applies just as much in publishing as it does in component-based automobile production. The result is cost benefits, more dynamism and targeted, individualized products.

The world of journalism is undergoing a fundamental change. Above all, this change is driven by technological innovation. Just as film changed theater, technology will have an enduring impact on the world of print media – and computer support is playing an increasingly important role.
Under the heading ‘Computer-Aided Journalism’ (CAJ), the presentation will focus on print media and provide insight into the current status of CAJ, the ongoing research and the potential developments.

Handling knowledge and information the right way is of great importance for success in publishing. This applies today and will apply even more in the future. Alongside the ongoing discussion about intelligent content management, the focus is on organizing knowledge.
The initiative “Excellent Knowledge Management” (“Exzellente Wissensorganisation”) pinpoints beacons of knowledge management via attractive competitions, prepares the related case studies and provides a platform for the winning companies to present their solutions and experiences in an interactive format.
The workshop is going to discuss the system of evaluation and present an idea of what excellent knowledge management can look like. After the workshop, you will be able to analyze your own knowledge management processes. You will also have thought about important steps in implementing your ‘company 2.0 strategy’, organizing your internal training program and offering your ‘knowledge staff’ an adequate infrastructure. This is a workshop which helps get you fit for the future.
You can find more information at www.wissensexzellenz.de (available in German only).

Jurion stands for the latest generation of integrated specialist information products. Jurion brings content, data and domain knowledge to the customer’s processes and embeds them in a network of colleagues, authors and partners – embracing all of this and still focussed on increasing efficiency. The implementation of this vision involves major challenges to the contextualization and semantic preparation of the content and the legal knowledge. The presentation will single out and elaborate on important elements of this contextualization. There will be further, more detailed explanations in this workshop.

Corporate publishing has developed into an ever more important sphere of activity for companies and publishers. The investments on the part of the companies, the quality of the publications and measures, the level of innovation – all the important factors in corporate publishing are pointing in one direction: up. Many corporates employ, for example, social media much more intensively for their communication than is observable in publishing houses.
This workshop provides insights into how a global market leader in corporate publishing is setting standards in communication and opening up new potential with social media. Take the rare chance to participate in an exchange of ideas and opinions between a “corporate” and publishers. Gain insights into how the topics of cross media and social media are approached in other industries. Compare notes on developments on the part of your advertisers and readers at first hand and learn how and why they are reallocating their communications budgets.

Innovative Publishing Processes | Workshops | English

Kobo is a global e-reading company with a catalog of more than 2.5 million books in dozens of languages and customers around the globe. Founded in Canada in late 2009, it has launched local e-book stores in many countries such as Germany, France, the Netherlands and Australia and is rapidly expanding into additional markets. In this workshop, we will look into opportunities and challenges of different e-reading markets: from the legal background, the different phases of digitization and e-book catalog sizes all the way through to pricing and the competitive landscape. The workshop will be held in English and German.

Approaches and perspectives | Presentations | German

Gregor Waller elucidates the essential driving factors of digitization – the most fundamental upheaval in the publishing industry since the development of mass printing.
On the basis of global trends, he outlines the importance of a commercially sustainable, holistic digital strategy which answers the question of which new tasks and paradigm shifts publishers must accept in a digital world where sales and marketing take place less and less via classic sales structures.
A summary of the monetization strategies used by newspaper publishers is intended to outline new demands on authors and editors, options for additional, digital business and sales models, and for dealing with cannibalization.

Executive Lounge | German

Copyright on the Brink?
Prof. Dr. Karl-Nikolaus Peifer, University of Cologne, GER

In the age of digitization, copyright has become a first-order subject of debate.
Users have the impression that everything is protected, creative professionals have to constantly ask themselves whether the building blocks (created by others) they are using for their work are still allowed to be used (at the same time, they believe that other people should pay more for their work), and rights holders have difficulty licensing productions and safeguarding products despite stronger, more comprehensive protections.
Nobody seems satisfied. Suggestions for radical reforms are multiplying. Is an acceptable development from the analog to the digital world still possible?

Over the past five years semantics have emerged as a critical capability for the online distribution of content, and a strategic growth platform for Publishers. Acting as a backbone for innovative content packaging, the technology powers advanced information access features on online information portals, with direct benefits in terms of audience engagement, as well as productivity gains. This session will investigate these key publishing applications for semantics, and underscore underlying trends shaping how we will manage, distribute, and access information in the future.